Saint John Transit to review holiday schedule

Christmas may be more than four months away but Saint John city officials are asking residents to think ahead to the holidays. Officials are looking for input on the public transit holiday schedule.

Currently Saint John Transit doesn’t run for a ten-day stretch over the holidays, but city council is hoping to change that. Council recently voted in favour of reviewing its core service for the 2013 budget. It’s hoping to gain much-needed feedback from the public through a pre-budget survey.

Saint John Transit Union president Tom McGraw says the money spent on the survey could have been put to better use.

“I would have rather seen that money put toward the system. Obviously the transit needs more money than just the $100,000 and we're hoping we see some increase on the 2013 budget, but it would be a quick fix and an easy one. Then people could have the holiday service back,” says McGraw.

Dan White, who relies on public transit, says holiday service should be provided.

"The more service being offered, the better for everybody. There's a lot of people that use public transportation to get back and forth,” says White.

Dean Giles, a regular transit rider, thinks service should be running 24/7, regardless of the time of year.

“It should be running seven days a week because you always have people that are going to the hospital or they need to go to an appointment or see family and if there's no bus service, how do you expect them to get there?" asks Giles.

City staff saythey're planning online and in-house consultation meetings to get public input on what improvements they would like to see. The meetings are expected to take place this fall.